CentOS by default comes without syntax coloring for Vim. You have to install vim-enhanced with this command:
yum install vim-enhanced
Then, if you’re lazy, open your ~/.bashrc and at the bottom add:
alias vi=vim
Restart your shell!
Vim syntax coloring on CentOS
22
Jul
Web development handbook 
roe
September 11, 2007 at 7:43 am
my problem has solved
thanks!
Nai
October 11, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Instead of restarting shell, you could do `source ~/.bashrc` too.
jcisio
April 9, 2008 at 12:41 pm
You save me. I’ve just bought a CentOS VPS.
Brett Alton
April 22, 2010 at 3:11 pm
For me it’s:
yum install vim-enhanced
echo “alias vim=vi” >> .bashrc
source .bashrc
But thank you for the tips!
Carlo
January 12, 2012 at 4:17 pm
this tips is work properly also on RHEL 6.2
boriskuzmanovic
August 21, 2012 at 6:28 pm
I’m glad it helped you. Pozdrav.
Dan Bernardic
July 31, 2012 at 1:54 pm
Ya!!! Thanks buddy.
Iliti hvala.
Ingo Baab
December 29, 2014 at 12:27 pm
Hi Boris,
that won’t work on my CentOS7, – any idea?
thank you.
-Ingo Baab